Washington: When Saturday Night Live joked last year that Donald Trump was “invading every aspect of your life”, it wasn’t kidding.
If it wasn’t enough that the man is constantly on your television and in your social media feed, soon he will be on your boarding pass. At least, if you’re flying into Palm Beach, Florida.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill that will change the name of Palm Beach International Airport to Donald J. Trump International Airport. From July 1, pending federal regulatory approval, the airport will no longer be known by the abbreviation PBI but by those ubiquitous initials: DJT.
The list of institutions to which the Trump name is being affixed is becoming as long as one of his speeches. A six-kilometre stretch of road between the same airport and the US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort was recently renamed the President Donald J. Trump Boulevard. A new “Trump-class” navy battleship is in development.
The US Treasury announced last week that Trump’s signature would soon appear on American paper currency, ostensibly as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations. His face will also appear on a commemorative gold coin approved by the Commission of Fine Arts, which Trump stacked with acolytes.
On Tuesday night, the musical Chicago will open at the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC – renamed by a board that Trump chairs and filled with loyalists. Technically, though, the storied venue remains the Kennedy Centre.
Meanwhile, plans for the president’s new White House ballroom, and a memorial arch (sometimes called the “Arc de Trump”) near the Potomac River, continue apace. The ballroom goes to a final vote before the National Capital Planning Commission on Thursday (Washington time) – handily, the chairman of the commission is Trump’s staff secretary, Will Scharf.
The airport at Palm Beach is probably a more fitting piece of infrastructure to be named after Trump, given his long association with the area and how much time he spends there, even as president. Even more appropriate, the flight path into Palm Beach International takes you over countless golf courses.
And back in the nation’s capital, Trump’s legion of haters will feel they’ve dodged a bullet – he wants to rebuild Washington’s Dulles International Airport, and there was chatter that it might be renamed after him.
The push to rename Palm Beach’s airport was led by state Republicans in Florida, but helped along by Trump’s son Eric, who posted on social media on Monday that he was “proud to have played a small role in making this happen”.
To be fair, Trump has really just taken the American tradition of slapping a president’s name on everything. And why wait until they’re deceased? Life is for the living.
There need not be a limit to the rollout of his branding: bring on the Donald J. Trump UFC Arena, the DJT McDonald’s Happy Meal, the Trump-Acela Express train and the Trump Smithsonian Institution.
Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.